Smoke on the Water
by E.E. Waters
Summary: This is an alternative universe story centered around Katara and Zuko. What would happen if the Fire Nation had found other ways to win the war than to bring the fight to the Earth Kingdom?
1. Prologue: Balance

**Disclaimer: I do not own any of the rights to Avatar: The Last Airbender. That genius belongs to greater minds than mine. I simply borrowed the universe it took place in and a few of the characters names. **

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"This is what the Fire Lord fails to understand. We cannot continue to execute every bender we capture. The spirits will not stand for it and I fear the price of retribution may be one our nation cannot afford." Iroh added.

"So this is your solution? How do we know if it will even work?" I replied.

"There is no way to know before we try. But it is a gentle process. Chi can be blocked and changed and redirected. If we are patient we can apply the same principle here and restore the balance the world needs." said Iroh, "But we will need to find a place to start experimenting outside the gaze of the Fire Lord. He cannot know until we have found success."

"The general in charge of Fire Nation prisons is set to retire next month. If we can see to it that you are appointed to that post, we can make this work." I suggested, though I wasn't sure Iroh would go for the idea. His detest of Fire Nation prisons is legendary, not that anyone really likes being around them.

"As much as I would hate to run my brothers work camps, I think you are right. It is the only way to try this somewhere he won't see it and have unrestricted access to the other benders."

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Two Months Later

Iroh stands on a platform raised above a room of about twenty prison officials. All have been chosen specially for his new program. They have all been told it is a rehabilitation program for benders, to redirect their chi and refocus it on other, less barbaric, pursuits.

"My brother suspects nothing. Now that I have been appointed we can begin our work. It is imperative that we follow the directions on the scroll exactly or we will end up restricting the flow of chi rather than redirecting it." he says.

We decided months ago, when Iroh originally had his idea, to keep the real focus of the program between the two of us. We both believe the Fire Lord will value our work when we are met with success, but he is an impatient and rash man who does not understand the scientific process. Once we have succeeded we will let him know and all will be forgiven.

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**A/N Reviews are welcome and wanted. If you have questions ask and I'll eventually get to answering them. **


	2. Part I: Katara

This is not the life she asked for or the life she imagined, not even a year ago. But her life has taught her wishing doesn't change reality. She has spent too long in this desert of ice to believe in wishing anymore. A long time ago this place was home to the most powerful water tribe on the planet, now it is peppered with tiny villages of no more than 200 people a piece. When the war started the Fire Nation saw to it that the Southern Water Tribe was destroyed and its benders were executed. Now they struggle to survive from day to day. Katara has watched as boys have grown into men and gone off to war, as women aged and lost their memories, as her people eroded before her eyes. They are not longer a proud tribe. They are a small group of people isolated in a desolate tundra of snow and ice; a shadow of their former glory.

As a child Katara believed they could fight against the tyranny spreading across the world; against the Fire Nation. She hoped they would win the war and her tribe could begin to put itself right again, but any hope of change died with her mother. She was ten when the Fire Nation came and melted her town, taking with them the last dregs of her childhood. Only ten when her last spark of hope was snuffed out. The Fire Nation came searching for the last of the southern benders and her mother sacrificed herself. Sometimes Katara wonders what the fire and rage would have felt like to her mother; how the heat would feel so foreign after a life lived in snow. She wonders if she could have done something to save her mothers life; if she should have admitted to being the bender. Surely the Fire Nation wouldn't have killed a small ten year old girl like they did her mother. But none of that matters now. She is dead and there is nothing, has never really been anything, that Katara could do about it.

Her father, Hakoda, left the village two years after her mother died. He said he left to fight for the Earth King, but she wonder sometimes if he needed an out. After that last Fire Nation raid her father was never the same. He withdrew himself from Katara and her brother. He made it a point to be gone on long fishing expeditions, to burry himself in warrior training, to do anything but spend time with the two people that reminded him of his loss the most. His leaving to fight for the Earth King was the last nail in his coffin. Katara felt abandoned long before he actually left. In one singed moment the Fire Nation tore apart their family and they have never recovered. Katara's brother, Sokka, coped by throwing himself into warrior training, first with their father and later on his own. Sokka did everything he could to get their fathers attention. He would volunteer to go on the same fishing trips, try to force his way into their fathers training sessions. He even tried to act out in the hopes that their father would notice him. But nothing worked. Hakoda left and it almost destroyed Sokka. In an attempt to join their father in the Earth Kingdom, he left to train with the sister tribe in the north. When they heard of their fathers death Katara hoped Sokka would come home, but he has no plans to return. He wrote a few months after the funeral to tell Katara that he wouldn't be coming back and asked her not to come north. Sometimes, when the pain of being abandoned becomes too much for her, Katara pulls out Sokka's letter, hoping it will make her feel closer to the last member of her family she has left, but it only mucks the water; sharpens her pain.

She wants desperately to escape this place; to be any where but here. When she was little her father would tell her stories of the Earth Kingdom. How beautiful the forests were and how the meadow grass would blow peacefully in the wind. She always imagined it as an oasis away from the ice. Katara has always known she could bend the world around her. It is difficult to live surrounded by snow and a frozen sea and never notice your affect on any of it. But bending killed her mother and, even though water is much different from fire, she never wanted to become that kind of monster. It wouldn't matter any way, there isn't another water bender in the whole south. She had never dared to hope that she could escape her exile and take refuge in the Earth Kingdom. Katara had thought about leaving many times in the past but was never brave enough to go. Some part of her held onto the hope that Sokka didn't mean what he said. She hoped, over time, he would separate himself from his grief and come home to the sister who needed him. But a year after their fathers death it was clear to her that Sokka was never coming back. She had thought about ignoring his request that she not come north, but that would never make things better. She would still be trapped in ice and would inevitably be rejected by her brother. The thought had even crossed her mind that Sokka might run again; that maybe he wasn't strong enough to be near her.

In the months following Sokka's letter Katara had played her escape over and over again in her mind. When Sokka left he didn't take everything with him. He left behind various odds and ends, but the most useful was his old canoe. When they were younger Hakoda brought it back from a visit to the Northern Tribe and gave it to Sokka as a coming of age present. Since then Sokka had allowed it to fall into disrepair, but Katara was able to fix it up enough to get it to float again and her plan always centered around the canoe. She had an old set of maps her father left behind that gave her an idea of how to get to the Earth Kingdom but it was a very long way to have to paddle a canoe. She had resigned herself long ago to the realization that she would only make it if she bent herself there. Every new moon she would pack her bag and intend to go but the reality of having to use her bending would cause her resolve to falter. Finally, five full moons after Sokka's letter, Katara forces herself to be brave enough to leave. She grabs her pack, leaves a note behind on her cot, and head out, fearless, into the silent night.

At first the calm southern waters make it easy for her to paddle herself far away from her village. The sky is clear, making it easy for her to follow the position of the north start. Her father neglected to teach her how to read the stars, so Katara plans to rely solely on the position of the north star and the rising and setting of the sun. At first she only paddles the canoe. It is easy work, something very familiar to her. She has grown up fishing and exploring in various kinds of canoes and Sokka's is no different. In someways it feels like home to her. After about an hour of paddling she admits to herself that she must start bending if she wants to stick with her plan. At first the push and pull of the water seems foreign and unnatural to her. She doesn't like how the water seems to be attached to invisible rope as it moves with her hands back and forth. But eventually she grows used the the sensation and tolerates it. About an hour after she starts bending, Katara looks up to make sure she is heading in the right direction and is startled by the presence of what looks like a ship on the horizon. Anxious that it could be the Fire Nation, she hides behind the nearest iceberg, but it is too late. The night watchmen spotted her fifteen minutes before Katara saw the ship and is very much aware that she is a water bender. He has already alerted the captain and the crew has been mobilized, ready to snatch her right out of the water.


End file.
